


To Know and To Love

by sarold34



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Camping, Din Dajrin needs to rest, Din Djarin - Freeform, Din Djarin Needs A Break, Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Din Djarin after Grogu, Din Djarin no helmet, Established Relationship, Fluff, GN Reader, Gender-neutral Reader, No helmet, Other, Self-Insert, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29133717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarold34/pseuds/sarold34
Summary: Din finally takes a break
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, Din/You, Mando/reader, Mando/you, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian/Reader, The Mandalorian/You, din/reader
Kudos: 26





	To Know and To Love

You were ripped out of your dreamscape when Din flooded your sleeping area with the light from the hull. You were having a really good dream too. The same one you always have, the one about Din taking his helmet off. Except every time you’re about to see his face, you wake up. You feel somewhat guilty about these dreams. You’d never ask Din to take his helmet off, you knew what that would mean for him, but you couldn’t help but wonder. You couldn’t help but wonder what his face looked like. The face you have kissed countless times in the dark with your eyes closed, the face your fingers knew the features of better than your eyes. You wondered if this made you a bad person, especially since you always told Din how much you respected him and the way he lives. You haven’t told him about the dreams, and it was likely a secret you’d take with you to the grave. You suppose this dream was better than nightmares, but you did get those too.

“What’s going on?” you ask Din, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. You hoped he couldn’t tell how interrupted your sleep had been the last few nights.

“I have one last job today, but then I have a surprise for you tonight. Can I trust you not to get yourself into any trouble just until tonight?” he says. He gives you a pleading look, subtly referencing the last time he was gone. When you accidently managed to get yourself into a bar fight. You didn’t do anything really, you just wanted something to eat. Something about looking at a man funny. You’d told Din it wasn’t a big deal, but he was never really amused at the story.

“You start a bar fight one time, and suddenly you can never be trusted. Pfft,” you joke, blowing air out through gritted teeth. You sit up on the mattress and swing your legs over the edge, resting your elbows on your knees, chin in hand.

“I’ll be back soon to get you, please look after yourself,” he says. It was more for him, than for you, but you nod in agreement. He walks over to you and kneels down to your level, beskar creaking as he does. He tips his head forward and you feel the cool metal of his helmet rest on your forehead. He did this for the first time a while ago. After the first time he took his helmet off in front of you, even though your eyes were closed. It was his goodbye. The way he said, “stay safe, I’ll be back soon”.

Normally when Din left on jobs, you went into a nearby town to get some food and supplies for you and him. But you decided not to this time. Din seemed really insistent about you staying safe. He always was, of course. But there was something urgent in his tone, like he might crumble if you were not here when he got back. So, you stayed put. Wandering around the ship and looking at all the loose wires and junk lying around. Since you’d be here a while, you always noticed a small box in the corner by where he used to sleep before he came to sleep with you. It didn’t seem like old ship parts or bounty hunter junk. It felt significant somehow. Something about the urgency in his voice earlier, or your own growing feelings for the metal-clad bounty hunter finally compelled you to look in the box.

Walking over to it, you open the flaps with shaky hands. Inside you find several tattered, beige cloaks. They are rough, scratchy, and the craftsmanship is fairly poor. They look like they are made out of flour sacks from local markets. They are also really small and look like they would only fit a child. Not a human child though, the head hole was too big, and the bottom didn’t really accommodate human legs. Taking out the cloaks, you find a shiny, silver metal ball underneath. It had a black strip running down the middle all the way around. Suddenly, as if a lightbulb just turned on in your head, your rush up the ladder towards the cockpit, ball in hand. You find the short shifter lever that has always looked out of place and screw the ball on. It fit perfectly. Why did Din keep this hidden? Wasn’t it important for the shift control?

You didn’t know the reason, but you knew Din must have a good one, so you unscrew the ball and walk down to put it back in the box. You could feel the significance of the ball and the cloaks, but you couldn’t tell why. You put the box back the way it was and leave it alone, worrying Din would know you looked. You spend the next several hours of Din’s absence fixing up some minor problems on the ship. These had been a problem for a while, but you’d been putting off fixing them for when you really needed to kill time. You were beginning to sweat from the exertion and heat of the ship when you finally heard the door of the Crest open.

You hear Din dragging the latest bounty in behind him and hear the high-pitched  _ hiss  _ as Din activates the carbonite chamber. You wonder who it was this time. High-profile criminal? Former imperial? Just some runaway? He never tells you, but you never really want to know. Sometimes thinking of him out there, risking his life, is too debilitating a thought. You didn’t want to make it worse by knowing the kind of people he was after.

“You ready, Sunshine?” Din asks, coming into the space you were working in. “Going to grab some stuff we need. Go get something warm, it’s a little chilly where we’re going,” he continues. You’re going somewhere?

“But you’re so warm,” you whine. It was a tease, but it was the truth. Din was exceptionally warm, even wrapped in metal.

“Go get ready,” he chides. The modulator hides a lot of the tone you normally needed to gauge people’s emotions, but there was something about having to get to know a man who lives in a helmet that made you develop better indicators for his feelings. He’s excited, and nervous. But you can’t tell why. That’s what you could never tell, the why.

The whole walk over, he never once tells you where you’re going. You keep asking, but he just gives you this vacant stare through the helmet. You’re on a temperate planet. Din told you the name, but you could hardly keep all the names of the planet’s straight. You’ve seen so many with Din it was hard to remember. There were both forests and mountains stretching out along the horizon. The ground beneath your feet was slightly squishy, indicating nearby water. You liked this planet. It felt very normal, very every day. You could imagine settling down here with Di-

_No_

You immediately stop the thought. There is no use torturing yourself with entertaining that. Din’s work, his life, keep him moving. There is no denying that. You would never ask him to abandon that for you. This planet is just a nice place to be with Din for a while. No need to entertain it any further. You’d only be disappointed when Din has to leave again, and you couldn’t ask him to stay. Not for you. You take a deep sigh to attempt to clear your head.

“Thoughts?” Din asks. He always does this. He senses when you’re thinking about something and tries to pry it out of you. It usually works, but you really didn’t want to share this. It was a dark part of you, and Din didn’t need to know it.

“Next jobs?” you ask in response. It was your usual dodge because he always answered it.

“Meeting with Greef in a few days,” he says solemnly. He’s had this tone talking about Greef for as long as you’ve known him, but you couldn’t tell why. Was he getting tired of his work, or was there something else?

You walk in silence the rest of the way. That was something Din was really good at, silence. It made you both nervous and comforted. Din tells you to close your eyes and you feel yourself being weaved in and out of some thick, soft bushes grazing against your shoulders. He has both hands on either shoulder as he leads you through the vegetation. You’ll never get over how it feels when he touches you. It took so long to get here. Get to a place where he felt comfortable enough to touch like this. So casually, so instantly. It’s something you’d never take for granted.

“Open your eyes, Sunshine,” Din says, removing his hands from your shoulders.

You gasp. Stretched out in front of you is a clearing in the forest he just led you through. Plush green grass blankets the ground as it leads towards a cliff overlooking some water below. You don’t remember walking uphill. Was this planet that nice that even the mountains have gradual slopes? A few feet back from the cliff was a tent set up with a firepit with a fire already raging inside. Did he do all this? Did he set this up earlier?

“Sorry. I lied earlier. I needed time to set this up,” Din says, holding out his gloved hand for you to grab. He leads you to the tent, where you see a mattress, some blankets, and pillows set up inside. You put your free hand into the tent part ways to feel that it is surprisingly warm compared to the chill outside air. He did all of this today? For you?

“Din, it’s. I mean, it’s really. You didn’t have to,” you try. You hated when you got like this, but Din always seemed to know what you meant.

“I know. But you deserve it, Sunshine. I leave you alone on that ship a lot. These next two nights, you’re not going to be alone. I know that isn’t a lot, but it’s all I could manage,” he replies.

“Two?? Din, you didn’t have to spare all that time for me. Cuddling on the ship during hyperspace would have sufficed,” you say. It was true. You loved doing that. But there was something about being with Din outside the Crest that made your heart ache. It felt realer. He felt realer. Like he wouldn’t disappear and leave you behind.

“Let’s eat,” Din says.

Din really thought of everything. He bought food earlier from the market and the Crest to cook later over the fire. And it was delicious. Fucking delicious. You don’t remember the last time you ate like this. Certainly not since boarding the Crest and flying over the galaxy with him. You look up towards the sky while you eat. You try and guess the places you’ve been. The parts of the sky you’ve seen. That Din has taken you to. When you were little, and looking up towards the sky, it felt distant. Unreachable. But not anymore. Since knowing Din, it feels tangible. You could go anywhere. Do anything. Be anyone. And that was something you never take lightly.

As you finished eating, you could feel the night air shift. Like something was pulling you towards a conversation you didn’t want to have. The air becomes thicker with the lingering tension as you finally ask the question you had been avoiding since earlier.

“What is that box of stuff Din?” you ask. You realize it was wildly out of the blue, but the energy of the night had shifted in this vulnerable direction.

Din sighs deeply and looks off towards the cliff. “There was someone before you. Someone I traveled with. He had to leave. That’s his old stuff,” he responds. His tone is so distant. Like he’s speaking to someone else, somewhere else. It made something deep inside of you twist and ache.

“Who was he?” you say. You didn’t want to prod, but the box seemed really important to him. And this was the first time he ever mentioned anyone before you. You also needed to know why the clothes in the box were so small.

“He was around 60. But his species ages slower, so he was very small. Like a child. No more than two feet high,” he says. That didn’t answer your question.

“Who was he to you, Din?” It hurt you to even ask, and you wish you didn’t. You could feel him wince.

“I was kind of like his dad, I guess.”

Jesus. Now you know why the box mattered so much, and why you really shouldn’t have looked. You could sense this deep hurt within him when you met, but you couldn’t possibly predict this.

“I don’t blame you for looking or asking. You were going to find out sooner or later,” he continues, finally looking at you for the first time since you asked. Well, at least you think so. It was always so hard to tell where he was looking under the helmet.

“Why did you ask me to come with you?” you ask, changing the subject slightly. You had assumed he was alone before he met this child, and you would have presumed he would want to be afterwards.

“Truthfully, Sunshine? I didn’t want to be alone anymore. The cockpit without another person in the seat was too… I didn’t want to confront it,” he says. Pain laces his voice, like he is trying to hold back a great hurt.

“So, I’m just here to keep you company?” you say. You’re slightly hurt. You thought you were more important than just a companion. You thought he asked you to come along because of a skill or asset you had.

“No, no. Stop. No.” he starts, shaking his head and scooting closer to you on the log bench you were both sitting on. He reaches a gloved hand out to touch the side of your face lightly. It was what he always did to calm you, and it always worked. He leaves it there for a beat until he can sense his action worked, before dropping his hand onto his leg. “No. I needed a mechanic. I’ve paid way too much at ports to have the Crest fixed. But you were also someone I could just exist with. Someone I could just be with. So, I didn’t have to face the emptiness of the second chair of the Crest. But you’re more than that now, Sunshine. You’re way more than that to me now,” he finishes. His tone drops slightly under the modulator, and it indicated an intense sincerity. It forced you to pay attention.

“What do you mean?” you ask, trying to grapple the newfound vulnerability. You couldn’t help but ask. He had never provided you with so many answers before.

“You’re the dream I didn’t think I’d get to have. The dream I didn’t think I deserved. And I’m never leaving now. I’m trying to find a way out of the Guild. It’s not a life I want anymore. You, this, is the life I want. Losing him, the kid, _my_ kid, and then finding you, made me realize that,” he answers.

God. You can’t think. How did he read your thoughts earlier? How did he bring this up exactly when you needed to hear the answer to a question you would never ask? You can’t seem to form any words either.

“I love you. Have I ever said that? I love you so much,” you attempt. That didn’t summarize everything you wanted to say, but someone it still seemed to placate you. You truly didn’t remember if you ever said that. It was true too.

“Close your eyes, Sunshine.” Din says, and you do as he asks. “Mando’a is dying. There aren’t a lot of people who know it anymore. We’ve had to simplify words. Make them mean multiple things. ‘To know’ and ‘to love’ are the same in Mando’a. Knowing someone is truly the same thing as loving them. I love you, sunshine. Open your eyes,” he finishes. And you do.

He took his fucking helmet off. You spend an eternity studying his features. The curls of his hair, rough from the helmet. The stubble covering his chin and upper lip. His strong jawline. But most of all his eyes. God his eyes. They are a deeply, deeply rich brown. The fire dances and reflects inside them, as your own are fixated on his. You take in every single sweet second, not knowing how much longer you’d be able to look. Your eyes start to burn, like you’ve been looking at a solar eclipse for a little too long.

“To know and to love are the same thing. Now you know me,” he says before you are able to speak.

“I always knew you, Din. I’ve always known you,” you respond. Surprisingly coherent considering the way your thoughts are spinning.

He places his ungloved hand on the side of your face and pulls you into a kiss. A kiss with such blind intensity you can feel your head lift off your shoulders. It’s the first time you could place an image to the lips you know so well. You don’t think the image will ever leave your brain. It’s burned behind your retinas.

  
  



End file.
